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The first name 
Zahra

Zahra is a female first name.

Zahra is a common name for girls!

The name Zahra isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Zahra ranks 631. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 3 were named Zahra. If you polled the whole US population – children, adults and seniors – you’d find less than one in 10,000 to be named Zahra.

You won't believe all there is 
to discover about the name
 
Zahra

What does the name 
Zahra mean?

Zahra is an Arabic name, derived from the word ‘zahra’ meaning ‘shining, brilliant, bright’. It is not related to Sarah, which is a Hebrew name meaning ‘lady, princess’.

Zahra is a... world-renowned name that has also been used in the US since the 2000s.

Zahra -
keeping with the times

Zahra is a fairly recent phenomenon. In the past, the name wasn't really on the radar of expectant parents. Then, unexpectedly, Zahra cried out for attention, reaching its peak in popularity at #536 in our SmartGenius statistics in the year 2020. People over 50 probably didn't have classmates named Zahra, for there were many years in which not a single parent chose this first name for their daughter. Although it also has never been in the top 100 of most popular first names, Zahra seems to have been in vogue for a while, especially since the beginning of the new millennium.

In years where the graph has no value, the name Zahra was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.

Zahra in 2022 – for some parents the most beautiful name in the world

489 babies were named Zahra in 2022 - that's 1 in 303,133 newborn girls. With this number, the girls' name Zahra ranked 551 in our SmartGenius first name statistics in 2022, the most recent year for which records are available.

Zahra -
special, but at home in many states

You may not know anyone named Zahra, but there’s a good chance you live in the same state as someone with that name. In fact, 32 states are home to women and girls named Zahra. (To be fair, a given name is only included in a state’s official statistics if there are at least five people with that name living in that state – so it’s entirely possible that there are still a few women and girls named Zahra living in one state or another. If your name is Zahra and you live outside of the states highlighted on the map, please let us know so we can refine our statistics even further). And while the first name is present in many states, it is still not one of the popular ones. In Maryland, which has the most people named Zahra relative to the population, you still have to ask 9,843 women and girls their names before you hear Zahra as an answer just once.

Zahra has 5 letters 
and begins with a Z

Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter Z is quite rare as a first letter for girls' names: only 1.9% of all common girls' names in the US begin with Z. By the way, the most common first letters of girls' names are A, S and M, while U, X and Q are the least common initials of girls' names.

With five letters, the name Zahra is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.

That means that with 1.9% of all girls' names beginning with a Z, this initial letter is less common than the other letters on average. Nevertheless, there are girls' names with Z that are quite popular, the most common at present is Zoe.

Other names with 
Z, a, h, r and a

If you take all the letters in the name Zahra – Z, a, h, r and a – and put them together again, you can form other names, such as Zahar or others.

With hands, flags and sounds 
How to say Zahra

If your name is Zahra and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...

This is how you spell the name Zahra

So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Zahra, you can simply say:

Zebra

Apple

Hat

Rocket

Apple

This is how the name Zahra is spelled in the NATO phonetic alphabet

The NATO alphabet often helps people spell words on the phone or radio when there are communication problems.

How do you write Zahra in Braille?

Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.

Zahra

Zahra

You want to tell a deaf person that your name is Zahra

Just use American Sign Language!

The name Zahra is particularly colorful in the Semaphore flag signaling system!

These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.

Z
A
H
R
A

Have you ever waved the name Zahra

In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.

Z
A
H
R
A

Beeping like crazy...

In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Zahra sounds like this: